Quote:
Originally Posted by m13s
Hi Dreamtime
You stated that your goal is to be a race car driver. Lots of advice some good some bad. There is no shortage of people wanting to separate you from your racing dollars, keep that in mind. Doing HDPE's is fine but that is not going to prepare you for w2w racing other than having track time. I would recommend Bertil Roos school, tracks are pocono, njmp, palm beach and a few others. Take a 5 day, 3 day beginner, 2 day advanced. You get two races at the end of the advanced school that qualifies you for a NASA or SCCA License. Drive the slide car, hopefully it will rain, more experience, passing from the get go, all in an open wheel 2 liter formula car. If you can drive this car well you can drive anything.
Take that knowledge and decide what you want to race and go from there. Not knocking HPDE's at all but chasing lap times is a fools errand and HPDE's does not teach racing. If you want to race go to a racing school and do it proper, there are no shortcuts.
Lots of people giving advice on car mods, save your money and put it into your driving. Hire a coach for a weekend or a day. Define a plan with him/her, and execute. There are many classes to race in, arrive and drives to dip your feet in. Don't make the classic mistake of spending all your money on mods, so there is nothing left to spend on learning how to drive.
Good luck and welcome to the dark side should you decide to go w2w.
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This is good advice. The thing that bugs me about the formula car schools is a formula car is so far removed from the experience a student will be familiar with, or actually see in most club race environments that it can overwhelm the senses, even on the rock hard school tires they run, and you end up getting a very expensive thrill that you just barely catch up to in time to be told CONGRATS YOU'RE A RACECAR DRIVER NOW and you're sitting there going "wait what?"
But I agree it's a great one-stop shop. And you will learn a lot of good habits and be broken or at least have the bad ones pointed out to you in a real hurry. There's something to be said for immersion